What Are Garage Doors Made Of ?

Natural Wood Garage Door

For many today’s households, the front door is not the first-string entrance—the garage is! Garage doors render more than a boundary between your vehicles and the world outside. Thanks to its ample, front-and-center position on the facade, the garage door has been through such a long history in creating the first impression your home makes on visitors and passersby.

Garage doors are not only performing such a crucial practical role. They indeed add aesthetic attractiveness to your home and can raise the value of your property. And when we’re talking about garage doors, there will be great variety of materials available. And perfect garage doors means about picking the best material to suit your needs.

By and large, garage doors are typically built from natural wood, steel, and composite or aluminum and glass. Each of those materials has, of course, their own strengths and advantages. Moreover, you may select them based on several considerations, for example their level of durability, energy, efficiency, or aesthetic appeal.

Natural Wood Doors

Wood garage doors are usually constructed with layers, or plies, to avoid deformation. These natural materials may include cedar, redwood, fir and meranti (luan). Wood garage doors can be obtained in form of factory-stained or painted, or finished on-site.

Why do homeowners choose wood as the material for their residential garage doors? There are several answers for this question:

Wood is unquestionably one of the most fine-looking garage door materials available. They have such deeply textured grains and the carved visual look that make these kinds of doors exceedingly enchanting. In this case, wooden garage doors can be stained as you wish, and it is easy to sand and coat them multiple times.

Moreover, for many homeowners, the attractiveness of a wood garage door is its warm, natural feel. For instance, a robust wood garage door carry a rustic, old-world attribute that conveys timeless beauty to your home’s exterior.

However, as much charm and warmth as wood doors bring to a home living, they also pose a few shortcomings. Solid wood doors are extraordinarily heavy. This means if they are not properly balanced, the mechanics wear out promptly. Wood doors are also vulnerable to warping, cracking, water damage and wood loving pests such as termites and carpenter bees.

Wood garage doors indeed offer aesthetic appeal, but they require high maintenance and may be costly. Yet, inexpensive wood garage doors may easily warp and break.

After shot showing the new wood garage doors before staining – Austin TX

Wood Composite Doors

Composite garage doors are usually featured with a wood frame covered with sheets of fiberboard. Better models offer higher-density fiberboard skins and include realistic details, such as overlays and grooves to imitate a real wood door. Cores are filled with polystyrene insulation.

Wood Composite Door

Steel Doors

If you are seeking for durability, steel doors are a great choice. Their strength makes them a famous hindrance for thieves, yet they are light and noiseless. And if you are pursing such a wide range of fashion, function and price options, steel garage doors are still an excellent choice.

The foremost steel garage doors are built of two layers of galvanized steel. Their surface is either primed and painted with a hard topcoat finish or bedeck with a composite material. You may paint your steel doors to match your home. Steel doors can be backed with foam insulation for additional warmth and can be designed to look like painted wood with a stamped on grain.

The weakness of steel doors is that they can be bent and are susceptible to corrosion, particularly in coastal areas. Steel doors that have not been stained on the outside incline to rust reasonably rapidly.

Steel Garage Doors

Aluminum Doors

In general, aluminum garage doors are lightweight and versatile, resulting them a popular choice for not only garages, but also for indoor partitions and patios. Indeed, aluminum offers a lighter door compared to steel and can also be produced to imitate the look of painted wood.

Quality aluminum garage doors are resistant to denting and may be insulated. They are far more rust proof than a steel door. Better quality aluminum doors can be quite pricey though.

Aluminum garage doors are affordable, light, rust-proof, and require low-maintenance. However, they are energy-inefficient since aluminum is a highly conductive material.

Among their many benefits and drawbacks, aluminum and glass garage doors are not susceptible to rust or corrosion, which make them a great selection for lasting aesthetic attractiveness.

Aluminum Garage Doors

Vinyl Doors

Vinyl garage doors are increasingly boosted as being “kid-proof”, due to their feature of being hard to scratch or break. This material is typically constructed upon steel frames, and filled with polyurethane insulation as well. They are really long-lasting in nature and call for only little maintenance aside from an infrequent hosing. You’re going to see that vinyl doors look similar to fiberglass doors but are available in fewer colors.

Vinyl Garage Doors

Fiberglass Doors

Similar to vinyl material, fiberglass garage doors are composite units, compounding a steel core behind a fiberglass or vinyl skin. They also featuring polyurethane insulated base sections, or other kinds of foam insulation. In details, two layers of fiberglass are usually secured to a steel frame and filled with polyurethane insulation. Steel end caps assist enhance rigidity.

These premium doors can compete with steel garage doors, and be a realistic mime of wood (called as fiberglass units), yet they may be more high-priced than steel units.

Compared to wood, fiberglass indeed is a more durable option. They can be created to tightly resemble wood, but fiberglass garage doors are able to resist moisture and insects. Also, fiberglass is far more flexible than wood, which prevents warping. Garage doors made from fiberglass are less susceptible to scratch or cracking. They do not eroded but can break upon impact.

This type of material is the lightest weight garage door you can find on the market and has become increasingly popular. It offers nearly no strain on the garage door mechanics and provides the most soundless option. However, some of their drawbacks are deficiency of resistance to force, and the colors incline to fade after years of sun exposure.